JCF To Get Body-cams However…

Members of the Jamaica Constabulary Force will begin to wear body cam­eras by the end of this year accord­ing to Peter Bunting Minister of National Security. Bunting revealed that the Government sourced 400 body cam­eras from the United States at a cost of US$400,000 .
That’s a cost of US$1000.00 per unit . Of course oth­er infra­struc­ture is need­ed in order for the sys­tem to work effectively.
Bunting said quote: “The peo­ple who would typ­i­cal­ly car­ry out raids like the Ops [oper­a­tions] teams, Mobile Reserve, the oper­a­tions sup­port teams in the respec­tive divi­sions, those would be the ones that would be targeted,”.
[“Targeted”.]

I won’t make a big deal about the word tar­get­ed, I have long con­clud­ed this guy Bunting is prob­a­bly a small step ahead of Portia when it comes to common-sense. 
I was unaware that Governments inten­tion behind pro­vid­ing body ‑cam­eras to their police offi­cers were to tar­get them. I some­times get accused of mak­ing hay over noth­ing but whatever.
As a police offi­cer I learned to let peo­ple speak when I have to inter­view them. Some offi­cers believed if they inter­ject­ed repeat­ed­ly they were sure to get bet­ter infor­ma­tion faster. Me , no, I believe if you allow peo­ple to talk they will even­tu­al­ly tell on them­selves or they will worse case give you use­ful hints into their thoughts.

Yesterday I spoke about [inde­com’s] head Terrence Williams claim that he wants to work cohe­sive­ly with police. At the same time he was mak­ing those claims his lan­guage was con­de­scend­ing , patron­iz­ing and reeked of Elitism. So even though Williams was say­ing one thing with words , the very same words depict­ed the lie with­in him.
This [PNP] par­ty has nev­er been sup­port­ive of the rule of law, on this web-page I have writ­ten exhaus­tive­ly on that fact. I have detailed the his­to­ry of the [PNP] as a polit­i­cal force in the Island and the way it has shaped con­tem­po­rary cul­ture for bet­ter or worse.
On that basis I am not sur­prised that Bunting’s own words would reveal his inner­most thoughts behind the police future use of body-cams.

Let it be under­stood that I am sup­port­ive of body cam­eras for all police offi­cers who have to set foot on the streets and inter­act with the pub­lic. Not just in Jamaica but across the Globe. I believe if used cor­rect­ly it pro­tects both the police and the public.
Unfortunately in Jamaica it will become one more tool of indict­ment against police officers .
Let’s not kid our­selves as you have heard it is intend­ed to tar­get cops . Jamaica does not have ade­quate laws which pro­tect police offi­cers. Criminals are embold­ened to attack police in many quar­ters. Some argue police offi­cers hands are tied behind their backs. This writer is one such person.
Public Defender Arlene Harrison Henry was quick to chime in once the infor­ma­tion became pub­lic say­ing quote: People can­not act with impunity,“It is a means that would make police offi­cers be more on their Ps and Qs”.
At a time when Police offi­cers are being assas­si­nat­ed, crime is at all time highs and peo­ple are get­ting shot on the streets , in bus­es and in their own homes the empha­sis should be on chock­ing off the life-blood of crim­i­nal gangs and their means of survival.
Instead the left-wing crim­i­nal sup­port­ing Government in Kingston is expend­ing more and more ener­gies in fur­ther­ance of shack­ling police officers.

♦ Many police offi­cers I have spo­ken to tell me the sta­tion house they work in are in dilap­i­dat­ed conditions.
♦ Police sta­tions have no vehi­cles to answer to 119 calls.
♦ Stations have no computers.
♦ Officers have only one set of uniform.
♦ Police salary can­not take care of their families.
♦ The list of griev­ances goes on and on, yet the Government is spend­ing US$400 ‚000 (their words) to tar­get Police units. You can deci­pher the word “Target” com­ing from the min­is­ter the way you chose to. In the con­text he used it I con­strued it neg­a­tive­ly, if he did not mean tar­get accord­ing to my inter­pre­ta­tion he should have used a dif­fer­ent word.
Furnishing the Police . Providing the police with body cams , any choice of words could have been used. Instead the Minister said targeted.
Targeted it is.

Just yes­ter­day anoth­er Police Officer lost his life, this time alle­ga­tions are that he com­mit­ted suicide.
 I served 10 years between 1982 to 1992 and to the best of my rec­ol­lec­tion I nev­er heard of a sin­gle police offi­cer com­mit­ting sui­cide dur­ing that time.
I will dif­fer to oth­ers on this I may be wrong but I can­not recall any offi­cer tak­ing his/​her life dur­ing my decade long service.

Police offi­cers are work­ing under severe­ly adverse cir­cum­stances in Jamaica. They are been asked to face some of the world’s most orga­nized and ruth­less crim­i­nals who have no com­punc­tion about tak­ing their lives.
They have an adver­sar­i­al over­sight agency sec­ond guess­ing every action they are forced to take in life and death sit­u­a­tions. This agency is head­ed by an over-zeal­ous ego-mani­a­cal , nar­cis­sis­tic Elitist who is hell­bent on mak­ing a name for him­self on the blood of officers.
And why not the for­mer head of Jamaicans for Justice Carolyn Gomes received National Honor drip­ping with the blood of police officers.
Additionally they are are paid a pit­tance and receive no sup­port what­so­ev­er from their boss­es in the polit­i­cal direc­torate, many of whom are crim­i­nals themselves.
At present we don’t know what caused this 33-year-old offi­cer to take his own life. We assume if indeed he did take his own life stress played a sig­nif­i­cant part in that tragedy. Early reports indi­cate he asked to be trans­ferred from the Four Paths Police sta­tion near May Pen where he worked to anoth­er Station.
No one is look­ing out for these pro­fes­sion­als and it is extreme­ly sad and disgusting,.
Many of them are actu­al­ly liv­ing in fear, afraid to speak out, out of fear of the Government and it’s oper­a­tives. Just recent­ly the Administration threat­ened to con­fis­cate the prop­er­ty of Police Officers if they did not obey orders to go back to work dur­ing their indus­tri­al actions. Many cops are afraid the Administration will use it’s pow­ers to con­fis­cate their per­son­al weapons which is their means of pro­tect­ing them­selves when the take off their uni­forms were they to speak out about con­di­tions affect­ing their inabil­i­ty to do their jobs effectively.
This is the sit­u­a­tion in Jamaica, for all intents and pur­pos­es the coun­try has been reduced to par­adise not the one you see on tele­vi­sion beg­ging for­eign­ers to come to Jamaica for sea sand and surf .
But a par­adise for crim­i­nals , cor­rupt gov­ern­ment offi­cials, and a killing fields where not even babies or preg­nant women are spared.